Bruckner's Abbey

Started by Lilas Pastia, April 06, 2007, 07:15:30 AM

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Lilas Pastia

Welcome, Marvin! You're in for an epochal journey. :D

marvinbrown

Quote from: Lilas Pastia on September 22, 2007, 03:18:06 PM
Welcome, Marvin! You're in for an epochal journey. :D

  Thank you Lilas  :)

  marvin

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: marvinbrown on September 22, 2007, 03:13:26 PM

  TODAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2007 I discovered Bruckner for the first time in my life. I will spend all of next week listening to Bruckner's symphonies. 

Lucky you! If you're bowled over by symphonies 0 and 00, prepare to be overwhelmed! Mountains are looming...
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Mark

Keep an ear open for No. 7, Marvin. My favourite of them all. ;)

Lethevich

I wish I started with the first ones. It'd probably have made my head fall off by the time I had reached the last few :D

Glad you chose the Jochum, and glad you didn't go for the best ones first, it will make listening through them all more rewarding.
Peanut butter, flour and sugar do not make cookies. They make FIRE.

marvinbrown

#405
Quote from: Lethe on September 22, 2007, 03:43:59 PM
I wish I started with the first ones. It'd probably have made my head fall off by the time I had reached the last few :D

Glad you chose the Jochum, and glad you didn't go for the best ones first, it will make listening through them all more rewarding.

  Lethe, in all honesty, I did not know what to expect with Bruckner.  So I figured start at the beginning, I did some minor reading and picked the first 2 symphonies Bruckner composed.  I instantly loved what I was hearing, much like my first reaction to Wagner......this sort of thing does not happen very often and when it does its a real joy. Sadly with Mahler the initial reaction was not so pleasant. 

  marvin

marvinbrown

Quote from: Mark on September 22, 2007, 03:38:10 PM
Keep an ear open for No. 7, Marvin. My favourite of them all. ;)

  Will do Mark  :).

  marvin

Lethevich

Quote from: marvinbrown on September 22, 2007, 03:53:45 PM
  Lethe, in all honesty, I did not know what to expect with Bruckner.  So I figured start at the beginning, I did some minor reading and picked the first 2 symphonies Bruckner composed.  I instantly loved what I was hearing, much like my first reaction to Wagner......this sort of thing does not happen very often and when it does its a real joy. Sadly with Mahler the initial reaction was not so pleasant. 

  marvin

It's just that, if Wagner comes to mind in the first few symphonies, you're going to be over the moon with the next ones :D

Btw, you bought pretty much the ideal set with the Jochum/DG. It's less nuts (in the brass) than the EMI/Brilliant Classics one, yet represents his insights into the composer just as well.
Peanut butter, flour and sugar do not make cookies. They make FIRE.

Lilas Pastia

Listened to tonight:

Helgoland. Symphonica of London, Wyn Morris. We've discussed this already. The conception is even better than I had remembered. What a rocky, billowy ride!
Sound is much sharper that I had remembered it to be, and it's probably different (early digital remastering) than the spacious and well-defined LP recording I hear in my memory.

Symphony no. 6. Two versions: Leonard Bernstein and the NYPO , and Heinz Rögner and the Rundfunk Sinfonie Orchester Berlin. Both are live recordings dating from 1976 (presumably Avery Fisher Hall) and 2001 (Berlin's Philharmonie) respectively.

The Bernstein didn't strike me as wholly successful. In the first movement he doesn't seem to know exactly how he wants it to go, almost as if he's feeling his way into the movement. The massive broadening in the coda makes the movement sound like it's progressively running out of steam, and the big ritard on the last chord sounds gratuitous. The Adagio is superb, sweet and seraphic in feeling. Scherzo and Finale are well paced, but again I could do without the rhetorical broadening at the end. The orchestra doesn't sound like it understands the music. Still, this is characterful and shows a powerful personality shaping the proceedings.

Rögner has practically the same timings as Bernstein's and these two readings are indeed alone in my collection to show the same ratio of speeds relative to one another. This orchestra has the music in its bones and the difference is striking right at the outset. They play better, make more sense of the mendelssohnian winds/string balance and their brass is more homogeneous. The conductor has some of the same ideas though: rhetorical broadenings on the codas of I and IV, but more smoothly achieved. One senses a slowdown, not a heavy braking.

I prefer the Rögner and would term it as good as the Haitink COA, Jochum BRSO, Lopez-Cobos Cincinnati, Kegel Leipzig, but slightly behind the two Leitners, the Keilberth BPO , Bongartz Leipzig Gewandhaus and Stein VPO. It's been too long since I heard the Celibidache and Klemperer, but if memory serves, they wouldn't be in the first rank.

Cato

Happy Brucknerosis to Marvinbrown!

A disease with no known cure!

Except maybe continuing the journey to Mahler and Schoenberg!    :o

I first came upon Bruckner via the score of the Seventh Symphony and then Jochum's DGG recording.

Quite a spiritual experiment for our colleague Marvinbrown to follow the earliest study symphonies to the mighty Ninth!    0:)
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

marvinbrown

#410
Quote from: Cato on September 24, 2007, 04:09:32 AM
Happy Brucknerosis to Marvinbrown!

A disease with no known cure!

Except maybe continuing the journey to Mahler and Schoenberg!    :o

I first came upon Bruckner via the score of the Seventh Symphony and then Jochum's DGG recording.

Quite a spiritual experiment for our colleague Marvinbrown to follow the earliest study symphonies to the mighty Ninth!    0:)

  Thank you Cato.  My order was dispatched today (First Class postage) and should arrive tomorrow.  My plan is simple, one symphony every night after work starting chronologically 1 -> 9.  When exploring new composers, I usually like to start at the beginning (Beethoven was an exception),  I like to see (or hear) where the composer came from.  I was surprised to read after hearing symphony no.00 "study symphony" that Bruckner was "plagued with doubt as to his own capabilities which came from his crtitics' harsh comments and friends who thought that they could help by changing the content of his works"- and they say a friend in need is a friend indeed! 

These early symphonies are quite remarkable- filled with so much emotion- they certianly caught my attention.

  marvin     

 

Lilas Pastia

Next Saturday there's an organ concert I could attend. On the program, a transcription of the third symphony. Has anyone ever heard such transcripts? I know there's a disc of it, which I've never seen. It seems to me that, of all the symphonies, the third might be the best suited for that kind of thing. The eight has been done (Rogg), but I don't like it. And of course, a recording can't compare to an organ concert in situ.

Lethevich

Quote from: Lilas Pastia on September 24, 2007, 03:01:43 PM
Next Saturday there's an organ concert I could attend. On the program, a transcription of the third symphony. Has anyone ever heard such transcripts? I know there's a disc of it, which I've never seen. It seems to me that, of all the symphonies, the third might be the best suited for that kind of thing. The eight has been done (Rogg), but I don't like it. And of course, a recording can't compare to an organ concert in situ.

I didn't like the 8th either. There is another organ disc which has a few transcriptions on (6th sym adagio, study sym scherzo) by Erwin Horn on the Novalis label, but I'm not convinced by the idea.

The 6th adagio in particular cannot help sounding choppy during the big themes, perhaps demonstrating that Bruckner DID write idiomatically for orchestra, as it wasn't successful in organ form, at least on this disc...

Good luck with the concert though - make us a bootleg recording of it :P
Peanut butter, flour and sugar do not make cookies. They make FIRE.

Lilas Pastia

Well, I'm an organ fan, it's a nice Casavant, and a large church with fine acoustics (same venue as those Nézet-Séguin Bruckner recordings). So I might give it a try and forget my preconceptions at the door ;). .

Also on the program, transcriptions of Wagner's Pilgrim's Chorus (Tannhaüser) and Ride of the Walkyrie, and the Wesendonck lieder. For some reason, I'm more skeptical about those...

It's a konzept thing, titled Hommage à Wagner.

Lethevich

#414
Organ transcription of Ride of the Valkyres...  :o I guess nobody can claim that organists don't have a sense of humour ;D

Even if the Bruckner is boring, that would make the visit worth it... Oh man, I am reeling from imagining how funny that Ride could be... :D
Peanut butter, flour and sugar do not make cookies. They make FIRE.

not edward

To throw a little change of topic in this thread, anyone have strong recording preferences for the String Quintet?
"I don't at all mind actively disliking a piece of contemporary music, but in order to feel happy about it I must consciously understand why I dislike it. Otherwise it remains in my mind as unfinished business."
-- Aaron Copland, The Pleasures of Music

Lethevich

Quote from: edward on September 24, 2007, 03:52:15 PM
To throw a little change of topic in this thread, anyone have strong recording preferences for the String Quintet?

It would be deceptive for me to recommend the recording I have without saying that it's the only that I have heard - but it's very well played and really turned me onto the piece: Melos Quartet, Harmonia Mundi. It's currently available in a digipak (yuck) on their budget Musique d'Abord label. The other commonly recommended option is L'Archibudelli, which I haven't heard, but can't be a bad choice.

I have a few vinyl rips by the Amadeus and Keller quartets, but I haven't really given them much of a listen. Too much music, too little time...
Peanut butter, flour and sugar do not make cookies. They make FIRE.

Lilas Pastia

I've known and loved the Melos for over 30 years. Its latest incarnaiton is on Harmonia Mundi. Then there's the clean, elegant Raphael ensemble on Hyperion, and my favourite is the probing, gusty Leipziger Streichquartette on MDG. I yet have to hear the L'Archibudellli version. Any comments on that one?

Cato

Quote from: marvinbrown on September 24, 2007, 12:50:27 PM
  Thank you Cato.  My order was dispatched today (First Class postage) and should arrive tomorrow.  My plan is simple, one symphony every night after work starting chronologically 1 -> 9.  When exploring new composers, I usually like to start at the beginning (Beethoven was an exception),  I like to see (or hear) where the composer came from.  I was surprised to read after hearing symphony no.00 "study symphony" that Bruckner was "plagued with doubt as to his own capabilities which came from his crtitics' harsh comments and friends who thought that they could help by changing the content of his works"- and they say a friend in need is a friend indeed! 

These early symphonies are quite remarkable- filled with so much emotion- they certianly caught my attention.

  marvin     

 

Later some of his "student friends" (the notorious Schalk Brothers, Franz and Joseph)would edit the symphonies into performing versions which were awful:

http://books.google.com/books?id=o8ejri7nVZYC&pg=PA192&lpg=PA192&dq=schalk+brothers&source=web&ots=k9ir0K1Jjp&sig=20VXaSt8EmT-Spcb1fB6OgudeLg#PPA192,M1

Their work is parallel with my experience with "literary editors" who are actually frustrated writers with no talent, no style, and no soul, but still fancy themselves able to "improve" someone's book with their "helpful hints"...except they aren't.    8)
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

cx

Quote from: Keemun on October 04, 2007, 10:14:54 AM
I've not heard this recording yet, is it really that superior to other recordings of Bruckner's 8th?

No. Not in my opinion, anyway, and I don't think I'm alone. I own the said recording and think it's a very fine account, but I'll reach for Böhm, Giulini, Jochum, Barbirolli, Kubelik, Furtwängler, Boulez, and Wand before Karajan (all very different approaches). Karajan and the WP certainly achieve something unique, but not entirely to my taste, and certainly not the last word on Bruckner. This is a prolifically recorded work, and necessarily so -- no one recording can cover the range of emotions and soundscapes this symphony is capable of producing.

--CS